The connected workforce is working from anywhere

We now live in a digital age, and as technology evolves it opens up new possibilities that didn’t exist before. Technology is constantly progressing but it is sometimes difficult to see the changes until they have already happened.

However, if businesses aren’t able to adapt to and integrate with new technologies they will fail to move forward. As technology advances businesses need to adapt and modernise in order to fulfill the needs of a more modern society and workforce; a workforce that expects to be able to work from anywhere.

The connected workforce

As technology advances it brings with it new and more efficient ways to live and work. An inevitable part of this evolution means that old technology, and the processes that were created for its use, can quickly become obsolete. Going back a few decades ago, fax machines were commonplace in the office. This was a great development at the time as it allowed people to share documents without posting them. Now with the ability to instantly email and attach scans, using a fax machine would be unnecessary and time consuming, not to mention archaic.

Conversely not giving today’s modern workforce the technology to create a more flexible, connected and productive work environment leaves them caught in older, slower ways of working. Or worse, it leaves them to find their own ways to work in a way that could contravene company policy.

In addition to slowing down the productivity of your workers, you may even put off the top talent. The millennial generation has grown up around the latest technology and expects to behave at work as they do as consumers; sharing, collaborating, accessing data from anywhere and using multiple devices and platforms. Adapting work culture to appeal to the millennials also ensures business remain agile and innovative, enabling them to compete more easily with start-ups who often function in this more contemporary way.

It is not only just the millennials who expect more flexible working. Most employees today have grown accustomed to a flatter working structure where collaboration is more important than the traditional hierarchy of our parent’s era. We are all working differently. This has been facilitated by both the development of and increased demand for cloud working.

Workplace

In the past decade alone we have seen a dramatic shift in how we work, with more people being able to work from home. Teams have become more collaborative and people expect to be able to share data across multiple platforms, work across multiple devices and access work data while on the go. Without the advances in mobile and cloud technologies working from home would not have being possible.

In addition to working from home, users can now take this a step further and work from anywhere. Organisations who encourage the new ‘working from anywhere’ concept get increased productivity and working time from staff who are no longer limited by the 9-5 style office hours.

Furthermore, employees get the flexibility, if they need it, to work collaboratively away from the office. With mobile devices being used for work purposes and a growth in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), businesses can take advantage of these benefits without any further investment in technology.

The human cloud

Many businesses are also taking advantage of the so called, ‘human cloud’ which enables them to utilise talent from a vast pool of freelancers who can work on demand from multiple locations. This means companies can now effectively run 24/7 and employ people from across the world to work on tasks by sharing data across a cloud platform.

In order to create a seamless process of collaboration, whether businesses are hiring from around the world or simply looking to create a more flexible working environment, there needs to a central file sync and share platform. Whether you’re on a beach in Hawaii, a freelancer abroad, or simply working while on the train to a meeting, a connected workforce needs the ability to access data anywhere, anytime and this access must not put company data at risk.

In order the leverage the benefits of a connected workforce businesses need to implement a file, sync and share platform that promotes safe and secure collaboration. If there is no strategy in place users will create their own methods, which often means storing confidential data on public cloud services. This leaves data vulnerable to hacks and accidental loss. With public cloud services businesses have no control over data locality or security, which means companies could also be breaching data regulations.

Private cloud

In order to progress and create an efficient business, organisations need to stay ahead of the times. We now live in a connected era and businesses need to offer employees the flexibility they require while retaining security through enterprise file sync and share strategies.

Using enterprise private cloud solutions will allow businesses to achieve a connected workforce by offering instant on demand access but with the security and privacy that only on premise solutions can deliver. Users can access corporate data anywhere across multiple smart devices, but the business retains complete visibility and control over privacy and location.

The connected workforce is here to stay, and while tomorrow we might be working from home next week we could be working from anywhere.